An application development cycle entails developing an application using programming code that is input through an integrated development environment or some other application development environment. The programming code is compiled into an executable that can be executed to run the application. The application can be tested, and subsequently modified through the integrated development environment by modifying the programming code. The modified programming code is recompiled into a new executable. The application can be deployed to various computing devices and computing environments for execution. The application development cycle can be cumbersome and time consuming because the application cannot be tested and modified in real-time during execution of the application. Instead, the programming code must be modified and recompiled into the new executable offline from execution of the application.
If the application is to be updated, then a software update patch is created, such as through the integrated development environment. An executing instance of the application on a computing device must be terminated. After execution of the application is terminated, the software update patch is executed and applied to data of the application such as to an executable of the application. Once the application is updated, the executable can be re-executed as a new executing instance of the updated application. Updating the application is disruptive to the user, can cause errors for other applications relying upon non-disrupted execution of the application, and results in downtime of the application. For example, if a network connectivity application is taken offline in order to be updated, then applications relying upon the network connectivity application for network connectivity will experience network connectivity interruptions, errors, and/or downtime.